Officials urge pre-emptive response to food-borne illnesses

Almost half of the states do a poor job of tracking outbreaks of food-borne illnesses, according to a study by the Center for Science in the Public Interest.

Pennsylvania is on that list.

“Reporting outbreaks of food-borne illness is important so that agencies that oversee food safety know where to look for problems,” said Dottie Bromley, educator with the Penn State Cooperative Extension service. “So they can alert the public if there are numerous problems and people don’t eat something that can make them sick.”

Each year, 76 million Americans become sick, 325,000 are hospitalized and 5,000 die from food-borne hazards in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Since 2006 there have been a number of nationwide outbreaks with E. coli bacteria found in spinach and in ground beef; salmonella in peanut butter; and botulism in canned chili. The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Economic Research Service estimated the economic costs of hospitalization, lost productivity and death from the five most common pathogens at $6.9 billion in 2000.

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The Senate and House of Representatives have held hearings on food safety. The Food Safety Modernization Act, scheduled to go before the Senate in April, would require the FDA to coordinate federal, state and local surveillance systems.

“We need to strengthen the state-federal partnership as we work to strengthen the nation’s food safety laws,” Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill. said in a release. Durbin sponsored the legislation. “Hardly a week goes by that there isn’t a report of an outbreak of food-borne illness in America. The current system really just reacts to food illness. We have to have a system that is protective of consumers by preventing outbreaks or nipping them in the bud.”

While everyone should be careful about food safety, it is especially important for people who serve food to high-risk populations, Bromley said. That includes children up to age 4, elderly people, pregnant women and anyone with a compromised immune system because of illness, chemotherapy or taking medication because of an organ transplant.

“It is all based on the immune system,” she said. “The young have not built up an immune system, the elderly’s immune system is wearing out and pregnant women’s immune systems are working for two. Women who are pregnant need to avoid listeriosis (listeriosis is an infection caused by eating food contaminated with bacteria called Listeria monocytogenes) that can cause a miscarriage or stillborn baby.”

Bacteria that grows under refrigeration is hard to detect. That is why obstetricians often tell pregnant women not to consume lunch meat, soft cheese, unpasteurized milk and hot dogs.

“An average person who gets food-borne illness may have an upset stomach,” Bromley said. “Someone at risk could end up hospitalized.”

There are several steps that people can take to prevent food-borne illness. Time and temperature is a big key. Hot foods must be kept hot and cold foods must be kept cold. Food should not be in the danger zone of 40 degrees to 140 degrees for more than two hours, she said. Prevent cross-contamination by using color-coded cutting boards — keeping raw foods and those that are ready to eat separate.